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Saturday, 15 April 2006 00:00

Health Highlights: April 15, 2006

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Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Iowa Mumps Epidemic Spreads to Eight States

Iowa’s mumps epidemic continued to spread this week, reaching eight states, CNN reported.

Iowa, seo tips which has reported more than 600 suspected cases since December, has received about 50 reports of new infections a day for at least the last week. Other states reporting cases include Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska and Wisconsin, federal health officials said Friday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not released the name of the eighth state, according to CNN.

The preponderance of mumps cases in Iowa have been reported on college campuses, where close living quarters help the virus spread.

The CDC has begun a multistate investigation since it suspects that air travel is causing the disease to spread throughout the Midwest. The agency is asking state health departments to notify any passengers who were possibly exposed to two mumps-infected travelers who took nine flights on two air carriers. The CDC had identified five Northwest Airlines flights taken between March 26-29 with stops in Iowa, Minnesota, Michigan and Washington, and four American Airlines flights on April 2 with stops in Arizona, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri and Idaho. So far, no mumps cases on those flights have been reported.

This mumps outbreak is the biggest to hit the United States in 20 years, the CDC said.

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Retailers Start Pulling Contact Lens Solution From Shelves

Retailers began pulling ReNu with MoistureLoc contact lens solution from their store shelves Friday, after the product’s maker, Bausch & Lomb, made the request on Thursday.

The student loan calculator cleaning solution is being investigated as a possible cause of 109 reported fungal eye infections since last June, according to the Associated Press.

Bausch & Lomb is recommending that consumers use another contact lens solution while U.S. health officials conduct their investigation. The company plans to place advertisements in major newspapers to inform consumers about alternative products, The New York Times reported.

“We find ourselves in a position where the safety of one of our products, ReNu with MoistureLoc manufactured at our United States plant, is in question,” company chairman and chief executive Ronald L. Zarella said in a statement.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors have spent weeks at Bausch & Lomb’s plant in Greenville, S.C., but have not been able to detect any source of contamination, the Times reported.

On Thursday, a New York man filed a lawsuit against Bausch & Lomb, claiming the company knew in February that ReNu with MoistureLoc could cause fungal eye infections but waited until this week to halt sales of the product. The suit seeks unspecified damages and class-action status.

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Volunteers to Try HIV Vaccine

People began signing up this week to take an experimental HIV vaccine that was developed at Emory University, the Associated Press reported Friday.

At the start of the trial, 12 people at four universities will be given the shots, which are licensed by Geovax Inc., an Atlanta-based biotechnology firm. This is a Phase I trial, where low doses are given to test for safety and immune response, Geovax Chief Executive Officer Don Hildebrand, told the AP. A second, higher dose will be given in a few months if all goes well. After that, future trials would be conducted to see whether the vaccine actually stops HIV from causing AIDS.

This vaccine is one of more than 30 AIDS vaccines that are in the early stages of human trials in almost two dozen countries, according to th